gordianplotfandomcom-20200214-history
II. INCIDENT
When we tell an incident, we do not put down our details without selection, nor yet half at random, as they may chance to interest us: instead, we choose those that bear upon one central action; we exclude the rest; we provide a clearly marked beginning and ending for our story, and see that one purpose binds all together. In other words, we "construct" our story, taking as much care that the parts fit well to¬gether as that they are in themselves important or interesting. First, then, we gather our material; later we arrange it. 13. Selection of Details.—To begin at once with an illustration, let us say that we want to tell a friend about a runaway accident that befell us as we were driving recently in the country. Certain facts we must tell,—who was with us, what kind of horses we were driving, what frightened them, how they were stopped, what damage, if any, was done, and so on through the more obvious details. But not all the important details may be of this obvious kind; some may seem trivial and useless enough in themselves, yet they may be found to heighten interest in the central action by preparing the reader for later events and drawing him into the spirit of the narrative. Thus, it would not ordinarily be regarded as worthy of note that the stableman was ill, and that his small son had harnessed the horses, but when we come to tell that it was a loose trace that first frightened the horses, the circumstance of the harnessing is raised to one of importance. Similarly, we might wish to give an idea of the unexpectedness with which the danger came upon us: some slight snatch of talk, then, or mention of some trifling occupation, would give an impression of happy carelessness, from which the reader would be as abruptly roused as we ourselves were by the realization of sudden danger. In brief, our method is this: 1. Selection of Essentials.—Having fixed upon an incident to be related, we take all the details that are needed to make it understood, omitting whatever may have happened by the way without affecting the inci dent. If what is left includes too much, and there is danger that the very accumulation of details will delay and weaken the effect of the story, we should then, guided by a sense of proportion, make still further selection of matter that is essential, or desir¬able for the reader to knew. 2. Addition of Effective Touches.—Sometimes it may be effective to add to the obvious and necessary de¬tails certain others that also really bear upon the central incident, or that may be made to do so. These last, it is always to be remembered, are not introduced, as in a chronicle, because of their general interest, but solely because of their fitness in increas¬ing the effect of the story. x4. Order of Details.—The order in which the events happened—or are conceived of as happening, if the story is fictitious—is the order, of course, in which they should be told: nothing is simpler than that in theory. Yet in actual practice we shall find that the rule is not all-sufficient, that there are times when we must adapt our theory to suit the peculiar requirements of our material. 1. Explanations to Precede Action.—The narration of an exciting incident may be an example in point. If we are narrating our experience in a runaway coast on a bicycle, there may be many details which we became suddenly aware of at the time, and which the reader too must be told, if he is to follow clearly the course of the action. That we had left off the brake the day before, that we had noticed on our way up the hill a steam-roller at work near the foot, that recent illness had weakened our strength and nerve, that under the trees were heavy, muddy spots which the sun had not yet dried,—these things affected us in the more exciting moments of our experience. But it would not do to interrupt that part of the action by deliberate explanation of such circumstances. By the time that the climax comes the reader's mind has been aroused, and anything that needlessly delays the gratification of its warmed curiosity is distracting and annoying. It is at the beginning that we must ac¬quaint the reader with the circumstances conditioning the action—so far, at least, as we can do so without too manifest an appearance of effort. When that is done we are free to reproduce for him, so far as we can, the feeling of the action just as it took place—its quickness, its sudden changes, perhaps, the exciting moments when there was no time to think or observe calmly, but only to act on the decision of the instant. 2. Elements of Surprise to be Held Back.—Under some circumstances it is as important to hold back certain facts as it is under others to make them clear from the beginning. We may, for example, be telling of some trick that is being played upon one of the actors in a story. The success of the trick requires, we will say, certain preparations on the part of the other actors. Now if the reader were told just what those preparations were, perhaps if he were told what any of them were, he could forestall the conclusion, and the rest of the story would not seem worth telling. On the other hand, the reader must not be told too little; else when the point is reached, his interest will not have been aroused, and the explanation, coming when no explanation is desired, will fall flat. Skill is required to steer the middle course,—to hold back enough information to keep the reader from antici¬pating the end, yet to give him so much that when the explanation finally comes it will illuminate in an instant all that has preceded it. Introduction.—The introduction of a story is by many understood to be a short paragraph prefixed to the story itself, and giving some sort of excuse for telling it. Such an introduction is the following, typical of many that are to be found in the newspapers: There is a common saying that it never rains but it pours. The truth of this old proverb was never more amusingly shown than in a story that is told of Jake Thomp¬son, the proprietor of a ramshackle hotel in a western New York town. One day—etc., etc. But an introduction is not properly any such round¬about, artificial formula as this. It is simply the begin¬ning of the story, and, in general, the nearer to the main action we begin, the better for the story. I. Varieties: Formal and Informal.—The fact that there are various degrees of abruptness in beginning a story, and various degrees of directness in leading up to the action after the beginning, permits us to dis¬tinguish broadly two kinds of introduction. We may begin somewhat formally by acquainting the reader •with the more general facts necessary to the under standing of the main action,—the scene of it, for in¬stance, the time, the actors, etc. This method has the advantage of clearness. Moreover, it is the natural way in which one begins to tell a story orally to a friend. It was at the beginning of the war with Spain that this happened. My chum, Jack Lucas, and I had enlisted in the first excitement, and two greener privates you never saw—nor any sicker, when we reached Cuba one scorching July morning. Not only are the necessary facts all here, but the conversational ease of the introduction makes it peculiarly suited to the narration of an incident. Again, when we are telling a story impersonally, the directness and simplicity of the same method often commend themselves. Once upon a time an old witch lived all alone in the heart of a dense forest. This is a conventional enough beginning, to be sure; but the whole story is likely to follow a certain familiar type, and it may be that our curiosity to know what the old witch does is aroused as well by such a be¬ginning as it would be by any other. The fault to be avoided in the formal introduction is tediousness, a long-winded insistence on details, while the action is delayed and the reader's interest wanes. The informal introduction takes up the story at some interesting point without a word of preliminary explanation, and then either pauses to make clear the circumstances or brings them in adroitly without seeming to do so. "There she blows!" And every man of us, from the bronzed, firm-jawed captain to the shambling cabin-boy, was alert in an instant; and while the men poured out of the forecastle hatch and looked about in a half-dazed fashion, the boatswain's whistle sang out its shrill order to lower away and man the boats. The story begins abruptly, but in that one opening sentence most, perhaps all, of the necessary questions are answered. The scene is a whaling-ship on the seas; the characters, the captain and crew; the time, when the old-fashioned methods of whale-fishing flourished—it makes apparently little difference just when. The advantages of this method are obvious: it arrests the attention of the reader at once, it tells the necessary facts quickly, and it lessens the temptation to dwell longer than is necessary on details not abso¬lutely essential. Its danger is that the writer, with a clear enough idea, perhaps, of what the circum¬stances of his action are, may thoughtlessly neglect to mention something, the omission of which will per¬plex the reader or put him on the wrong track alto¬gether. 2. Tone.—The distinctions we have just made be¬tween formal and informal introductions, together with the examples, show that the introduction serves another purpose besides simply giving a starting-point and some necessary explanations: it serves to give also the tone of the story, to set, so to speak, its pitch. In this view, the opening sentence becomes of the greatest importance, for while it strives to catch the reader's attention, it should also put him in the proper mood for what is to follow. Eloise had drawn rabbits in her catechism. There is no need to tell just how Old Eloise was, or where she lived; or if there is, it can be told later; the sentence has put us in the mood for a story of childish waywardness—and that is chiefly what is required of it. In quite a different mood, we feel, will go on a story that begins with the following sen¬tence: It was one of those warm moonlight nights that drag you irresistibly from your studies out into the open air. And so in general. The reader should be told, indirectly of course, what sort of story is to follow, that he may adapt his mind to it accordingly. If the story is to be one of realistic adventure, as told by one of the actors, it should begin in a way that will make it seem true to the reader, and not start off vaguely, as if the scene and the circumstances had made no definite impression on the teller. In excite¬ment one sees vividly, whether or not he interprets rightly what he sees, and the use of specific details in the introduction will often give an impression of actuality which the reader must feel if he is to enter sympathetically into the spirit of the story. x6. Conclusion.—The conclusion is the end of the tory—that is all. It is no more an appendage, tacked on after the end of the story to "round it out," than is the introduction a round-about excuse tacked on at the beginning. First of all, then, it is necessary to de¬termine just what the main purpose of our story is, for when that purpose is accomplished we must stop. If we are .telling of a runaway accident, the narrative properly ends when the actors leave the scene of the occurrence, whether they return safe to their home or are taken to a hospital in an ambulance. To be sure it may be, in this latter case, only natural that the reader should wish to know "how it turned out" finally: undoubtedly some stories would seem distinctly unsatisfactory if a certain natural curiosity were not given reasonable gratification. But in such a case it is sufficient to hint at the result, bringing out the facts indirectly; else the reader, by being transferred to another scene and other circumstances, fixes his attention on them, and loses the sense of unity that the telling of a simple incident should give him. It is all a matter of proportion: an ending suitable to a long story told in a leisurely mood would be wholly inappropriate when applied to the brief, condensed telling of an incident. Another error we should avoid, and that is to end with some bit of moralizing or with some common¬place comment that is quite obvious to any intelligent reader At best such an ending is unnecessary; fre¬quently it falls into trite, over-used phraseology; and in almost all cases it weakens the total effect by putting into perfunctory, tame words an impres¬sion that has already been given the reader vividly, by means of the events actually narrated. Too many picnic stories, for example, end somewhat like this: Then we returned home, tired but happy, and all agreeing that we had spent one of the pleasantest days of our lives. Or, if Richard has come to grief: Richard led his bicycle back to the repair-shop, a sadder but wiser man, convinced at last that it did not pay to trust himself to hilly roads without providing himself with a brake. But these suggestions are all negative: let us look for some positive directions that will be more practical To begin with, no simpler or more natural ending can be devised than to finish telling the main incident and then stop. It may result in abruptness, but that is better than prolixity or aimless commonplace. Abruptness may even be a merit in itself: a story with a surprise, for instance, can scarcely end too sud¬denly. Again, the ending of a story may be devised with reference to the beginning. A story of hurried prepa¬rations for visitors in a dormitory begins: "At one- thirty, disorder and confusion." Then follows a story of frantic activity, moving, arranging, and deco¬rating. It is concluded in a way that brings emphasis on the contrast: "At two-thirty, order and peace." Finally, we may comment on the story we have told without putting our remarks into the form of a flat statement or direct moral, by an indirect sugges¬tion or two, the significance of which will be imme¬diately perceived by any alert reader. Examples might be multiplied indefinitely, but we have two at our hand if we turn back to the unimaginative com¬ments given above, and give them less trite, common¬place expression: Then we returned home, not singing uproariously as we did going out, but content to sit silent, or hum a tune half abstractedly. Richard led his bicycle back to the repair-shop, calculating, meantime, what was left of his allowance, and comparing it with the price of brakes. THE DRY MARCH We filed along the narrow trail that zigzagged down the face of the rocky bluff bordering the mesa. Nineteen miles in the scorching Arizona sun had bred a thirst that made us curse the prodigality with which we had wasted our water on our dogs in the cool hours of the early morning. Half a mile more and we should be in camp among the walnuts under the high bluff at the bend of the stream below. So we wiped the sweat from our burning faces with our shirt-sleeves, spat what dust we could from our parched mouths, and kicked our tired horses vigorously in the ribs. In a few minutes we rounded the end of the bluff, with a pleasant feeling of relaxation, for the day's march, with its miles of glimmering, sun-scorched lava, was over. Parting the bushes, we made our way toward the pool in the cool shade of the overhanging rocks. Then, breaking through the last fringe of brush, we were startled by the sudden buzzing of thousands of flies. There, in our longed-for pool, lay the body of a dead steer, with a dozen or more gaily striped water-snakes wriggling in the green slime around it. n] ACTION U